Gaseous Anomaly:thatboyoverthere: J. Frank Parnell: Ok, these have to be made up. Anti-depressants don't make people happy and optimistic. They remove the lows and the highs.

You're thinking of Bipolar medication. Anti-Depresseants just keep you from falling into the pit of self-loathing and hate.

The best analogy I've seen is that depression is like wearing "shiat-colored glasses", and taking antidepressants is like removing them.

They certainly don't make one "artificially" happy - we have a name for that condition: stoned. If they could get people stoned they'd have street value, and they don't.

Actually, my experience has been that they can make one 'happy'. At a former gig a colleague's wife took antidepressants which gave her a constantly sunny disposition, even when the situation was not that rosy. We even called her "Happy" behind their backs. I only found this out because one morning I remarked to him that his wife certainly seemed chipper that morning (she came to work with him, then left to do something else), to which he replied something about her being that way when she took her meds on time.

I wanted to crawl into a hole, but he seemed matter of fact about it. And no, I don't what was 'wrong', nor what meds she was on. Kind'a creepy, tho.

Paxil us a hellof a drug. They put me on it before they diagnosed me with OCD and it made me go absolutely bat shiat crazy. Which actually helped them to properly diagnose me because the type if batshiat crazy it made me go was exactly the type of batshiat crazy a person with OCD would go if you pumped them full of that much Paxil all at once.

I was married to a suicidal cutter. One day she carved words into the bottom of her feet because "God was out to get her." She eventually got better, more through therapy than medication. Once she was healthy she dumped me because my very presence reminded her of when she was sick. What a FUN twenty years that was! I got two great kids out of it or it would have been a total waste of time.

TheShavingofOccam123:I had a psychology profess who quit marriage counseling after a certain client...

He told a married woman with an unsatisfactory sex life to buy a vibrator. BIG MISTAKE (for the husband).

She found herself (often several times a day), grew a pair and told the husband to get the fark out of her life.

The husband told the counselor "thanks a bunch", agreed to a divorce and was never heard from again. The woman decided she didn't need therapy anymore either.

I'm not seeing why this was a failure. Being a marriage counselor means fixing things by highlighting problems. Sometimes that problem is there is fundamental incompatibility and the prudent thing is to not be together any more. Sounds like that's what happened here. Mission accomplished!

Delawheredad:I was married to a suicidal cutter. One day she carved words into the bottom of her feet because "God was out to get her." She eventually got better, more through therapy than medication. Once she was healthy she dumped me because my very presence reminded her of when she was sick. What a FUN twenty years that was! I got two great kids out of it or it would have been a total waste of time.

EdNortonsTwin:CapeFearCadaver: EdNortonsTwin: What do you think would be harder? Getting off paxil or getting off a fat wife?

I don't know, but my ex couldn't get off while he was one paxil...

Was he annoyingly cheerful? Because I can't get my nut and laugh at the same time.

Good lord no. That man's never been cheerful, much less annoyingly so.

He was using it as a supplementation on top of a slew of other medications for bipolar with intermittent explosive disorder. The thing I noticed while he was on paxil was that he was more... himself. They did help him, at least with the immediately running to his hulksmashrage any time things didn't go his way. But, he got off of them because he couldn't get off... or it took him too much time to.

TheShavingofOccam123:I had a psychology profess who quit marriage counseling after a certain client...He told a married woman with an unsatisfactory sex life to buy a vibrator. BIG MISTAKE (for the husband).She found herself (often several times a day), grew a pair and told the husband to get the fark out of her life. The husband told the counselor "thanks a bunch", agreed to a divorce and was never heard from again. The woman decided she didn't need therapy anymore either.

When I studied chemical dependency counseling, one of the 'typical' circumstances we covered was the alcoholic who stopped drinking--and then left his or her family. Most therapy is for an individual, but the dynamic affects the entire family. One case example included a wife who would keep putting the alcoholic's favorite brandy on the same table as always--starting the hour he got back from rehab. 'The status quo must be preserved' is a common motivation.

I'm 55 now and have known I was bipolar since I was 13. No meds until I was 40 when I was clinically depressed and put on Paxil and Lithium. The Lithium made me mellow out and also "helped" me put on 25 pounds. The Paxil kept me from getting depressed but it doesn't just truncate depression, it truncates all emotion. Look up "emotional blunting" sometime and you'll get the picture. Empathy for others is hard when you're in that state and it's hard to maintain any kind of relationships without being able to feel anything for others.

Paxil also causes the lovely side effect of preventing ejaculation, great for the ladies I guess.

I started real therapy and meditating about two years ago and the combo was starting to help with emotional control. Then last October I was laid off, lost medical benefits and could no longer afford any prescriptions.

I don't miss the meds at all. I've lost 30 pounds and I'm in better shape and have more energy than I've had in decades. The therapy I'd undergone helped me face internal issues. I'm no Birkenstock-wearing granola-crunchy person but the meditation really does help.

But if you need the meds you just need them, irregardless of anyone else's needs. Just be careful that you don't think the meds are a silver bullet.

J. Frank Parnell:Ok, these have to be made up. Anti-depressants don't make people happy and optimistic. They remove the lows and the highs.

When I was put on Paxil I had this desperate need to be seen as "fixed" which made me crank up the "look how happy I am" routine. Which eventually lead to "the only way this shiat is going to work is if I take the whole bottle at once". Which lead to a few months stay in a mental hospital while they tried to figure out what is wrong with me.

It could be her "happy happy, joy joy" mood is just an act to reassure everyone around her she is "fixed" now.

In which case watch out because you can only keep that routine up for so long and when it falls it falls hard.

Delawheredad:Letters like this expose the fact that Dear Prudence is an exercise in creative writing and is not to be taken seriously. No ones personality goes through that dramatic a personality change from an antidepressant.

The Snow Dog:I've been depressed for years. I don't have "highs". I have rare periods of "not low" when I distract myself with something or other. If you have highs and lows you're probably more bipolar--as opposed to just depressed.

Normal people are happy sometimes, and sad other times. Bi-polar is when people experience extremes of each, often switching between them in a matter of minutes for no apparent reason.

The general consensus from those who've spent a long time on anti-depressants seems to be that sure they're not depressed anymore, but they're not exactly happy, either. They experience a sort of dumbness. Just google 'anti-depressants numbness' to see what i'm talking about.

barc0001:I'm not seeing why this was a failure. Being a marriage counselor means fixing things by highlighting problems. Sometimes that problem is there is fundamental incompatibility and the prudent thing is to not be together any more. Sounds like that's what happened here. Mission accomplished!

Goddamn right. My mom's marriage counselor told her to ditch her last husband. Good advice, too. Turns out the local transvestite escort service refused to service him anymore because it his poor manners with the ladies. I guess that made him a little jumpy around the house, and his pr0n habit went from three figures per year to four.

INeedAName:What are the name of these pills? How do I sign my wife up?

The article stated that she is taking Paxil, a pill I used to take. It does not make rainbows fly out your ass like the guy in the article stated. I can only guess that (if the letter was real), the guy considers anything without some sort sarcasm and gloom to be filled with annoying happiness and rainbows. Hmmmm, maybe he's a Farker.

Ghastly:J. Frank Parnell: Ok, these have to be made up. Anti-depressants don't make people happy and optimistic. They remove the lows and the highs.

When I was put on Paxil I had this desperate need to be seen as "fixed" which made me crank up the "look how happy I am" routine. Which eventually lead to "the only way this shiat is going to work is if I take the whole bottle at once". Which lead to a few months stay in a mental hospital while they tried to figure out what is wrong with me.

It could be her "happy happy, joy joy" mood is just an act to reassure everyone around her she is "fixed" now.

In which case watch out because you can only keep that routine up for so long and when it falls it falls hard.

I haz a sad for you. Any way I can encourage you to post that pic of you in a steampunkkilt, hands on hips, giving the 1000 yard stare? That's some serious SSRI for me!

My bipolar husband decided to get on medications to try and help stabilize him. That's great for him and all but I have daddy issues and am feeling very bored and decently about myself now that he is not constantly berating me over the smallest issue. Sometimes his anger comes through and I can feel the waves of anxiety washing over me like a warm and dark blanket; but then he catches himself and actually apologizes for his behavior. Now that I don't have someone watching my every move waiting me to fark up I am feeling lonely and appreciated. Please help!

Signed, Crazy biatch

Dear C B:

I can't tell you what you should do, but I can tell you what you are going to do. You are going to go out and find another tatted up bipolar lunatic who resembles your husband when he goes off his meds, you are going to bang him for six months behind your husbands back before surprising your husband with divorce papers (he doesn't notice as much now that he's not up in your business 24-7). Then you are going to move in with the new guy and have a joyously abusive time for about three months before calling your ex to come rescue you. By this time he will have gone off his meds and started using drugs again. He won't even be able to rescue himself, much less you.

Dear Prudence: My favorite time-wasting website has started taking kickbacks from Slate to run endless links to Dear Prudence columns that are largely fictitious letters written by Slate's staff, so that a fictitious person called Prudence can write fictitious answers pretending to provide advice while merely bulking out the column inches to fit some more ads in. I hate it.

I starting taking Zoloft when my lack of getting laid started meaning I was coming home angry and mean just about every day. It worked great for me. My wife still doesn't put out, but I don't give much of a shiat about it anymore.

The other annoying side effect of Paxil besides the super suicidal thoughts part was it made me hyper horny but completely unable to orgasm. Didn't matter how many transexual Asian swathed choked me while I masturbated with a dead chicken. I still couldn't cum.

I was on Zoloft for about a year after a few nasty events had left me depressed to the point where I could barely get out of bed. At least in the first month or two, it really did make me feel a lot more bubbly and a little punch-drunk; it was, as someone else said, like removing shiat-coloured glasses and thinking "Wait! Everything's OK after all! The world is a beautiful place! YAAAAY!" After I got used to it I mellowed out.

gweilo8888:Dear Prudence: My favorite time-wasting website has started taking kickbacks from Slate to run endless links to Dear Prudence columns that are largely fictitious letters written by Slate's staff, so that a fictitious person called Prudence can write fictitious answers pretending to provide advice while merely bulking out the column inches to fit some more ads in. I hate it.

Dear gweilo8888,

Gosh, that sounds awful! I find that when I'm feeling down about things like this, I like to visit a little website called BUZZFEED. Whenever I go to BUZZFEED, I find the latest trends on the internet, distilled into simple, easy-to-understand BUZZFEED slideshows. It's great, because not only do you get the latest content from other websites with BUZZFEED captions added onto it, you also get to hear that delightful clicking noise your mouse makes, again and again!

Just make sure to visit all of the BUZZFEED links on Fark. You won't miss them, because there's a lot of them!

gweilo8888:Dear Prudence: My favorite time-wasting website has started taking kickbacks from Slate to run endless links to Dear Prudence columns that are largely fictitious letters written by Slate's staff, so that a fictitious person called Prudence can write fictitious answers pretending to provide advice while merely bulking out the column inches to fit some more ads in. I hate it.

meanmutton:that was my nickname in highschool: but seriously, who pays for pr0n?

People who like porn but not the gonzo style that makes up the vast majority of free porn?

payed supermodel porn for those whose lifestyles make them as ripped as the male actors. Gonzo for the rest of us slobs.

There's a market for every fetish imaginable. Fat, hairy blokes pounding their evening's 'doggybag' form their bar is much more realistic, thus having a greater appeal to the masses. unachievable goddesses shot in artsy HD? Most guys out there are 'meh' about paying the 50$ a month to see prepubescent (shavenhaven) girls doing things in an overproduced fashion isn't that 'hot', unless you've never had sex (with anything other than you hand). There's a glut in the market for this kind of gonzo, (easier, cheaper to shoot) Mainstream porn companies (looking at you Vivid Video) are all about DVD sales. It's an outmoded concept.

Ghastly:The other annoying side effect of Paxil besides the super suicidal thoughts part was it made me hyper horny but completely unable to orgasm. Didn't matter how many transexual Asian swathed choked me while I masturbated with a dead chicken. I still couldn't cum.